We have such a pessimistic view of the word diet, based on a definition of strict limitations, but a diet is more properly defined by what you do eat, rather than what you do not. A diet defined by contrast to indulgences will only be seen as punishment and denial of gratification, and of course, a perpetual denial of gratification will only lead to persistent cravings (or is that spiritual enlightenment? I often get these things confused.)

The old adage of “everything…” does not pertain to some appetites who know no moderation. If only there were a pill you could take that would satiate all of your nutritional needs and your hunger, freeing yourself of the time-consuming task of eating and the burdens associated with it. We have vitamins and appetite suppressants; flavor and texture simulations; so why haven’t we made the leap to true meal replacement pills?

Food is more than taste, vitamins and nutrients. Even if we could isolate everything essential to human health and could fix them into an ideal delivery system combined with desirable flavor profiles, it would not be enough. We need to take in calories, and you simply cannot get enough calories from taking a few pills.

When you look at a nutritional label, the calories are broken down by carbohydrates, protein and fats. Both carbohydrates (excluding fiber, which passes through the body undigested) and protein provide four calories per gram, while fats provide nine. I’m sure it speaks volumes about me that I spend portions of my free time calculating how this information is falsified in some way for marketing ploys. Who knew simple addition and rounding could be so deceptive? But I digress.

Fat clearly being the most efficient delivery of calories, you would still need to consume about 225g of pure fat (approximately a cup) to meet the average 2000 calorie needs of an adult. Combined with glycerin and formed into capsules… that’s a whole lot of capsules. And that whole lot of capsules would still be too few, as the body will not function too well on pure fat and multivitamins alone.

While we’ve managed to isolate nutrients and fool our mouths and brains, the rest lays in the realm of impossibility. Which is certainly good news for those of us happy to eat real food, lest we succumb to the perils of heavily commercialized nutrient-fortified super “foods” in their place…

It is in large part due to Accum’s publication that raised awareness about the widespread use of contaminants in food, that started a snowball effect which eventually led to development of organizations like the FDA. You might be surprised to know that it wasn’t until 1906 that the FDA passed the Pure Food and Drugs Act that prohibited adulterated and misbranded food and drugs. Little more than a century ago, people didn’t even have the common security of knowing that their food was safe. While the FDA occasionally comes under scrutiny, having such an organization in place has definitely improved our public health in many ways.

There have been comparatively few issues with contaminants in our food in recent history. The debauchery of our food no longer poses such dramatic risks to our health as lead in our diet. However, Accum did not just write about direct consequence to our health, but ways of deceiving the public to buy products of inferior quality. Although there is regulation preventing completely unsubstantiated claims, it is still possible to skew the results of research and use suggestive and misleading marketing — implying greater benefits and omitting shortcomings — to sell products.

There are illegal deceptions taking place in this regard — impure olive oils, wines and cheeses claiming authenticity and fetching a high market value that have received media attention lately — and legal ones. An innocent example, to compare the times, would be the use of arrowroot in the past to thicken spoiling milk to pass off as cream. This was a technique once considered a dishonest business practice, but it is now part of a thriving industry.

No, the cream on the shelves isn’t spoiled milk masquerading as something else, but many, if not all of the most reputable yogurt producers use starch and/or gelatin to thicken their products. This not only appeases the producers, because it costs less money to produce, but the public as well, who want a cheap, low-fat and low-calorie yogurt without really caring how it is accomplished or what sacrifice is made. These yogurts are of mediocre quality, but since they make up a predominate share of the market, there is little basis for comparison, and soon the public simply accept the replacement as as a genuine article.

Keeping in mind that all that is necessary to make yogurt is milk and bacterial culture, let us compare the ingredients list of plain yogurt from the major brands:

• Astro Original: Skim milk, cream, skim milk powder, tapioca starch, agar, pectin, guar gum and active bacterial cultures.
• Yoplait (Source): Skim milk, active bacterial culture, milk and whey proteins, modified cornstarch, gelatine, vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3.
• Danone Activia: Skim milk, cream, concentrated skim milk, sugar, milk and whey protein concentrate, fructose, corn starch, gelatin and active bacterial cultures.
• Stony Field Farms: Lowfat cultured pasteurized organic low fat milk, pectin, vitamin D3 and active bacterial cultures.

It’s no wonder that yogurt products consisting simply of milk and/or cream and bacterial cultures, like those offered by Fage and Liberté, are viewed as such a remarkable indulgence in comparison. Although it’s perfectly legal to add stabilizers (alginates, gelatins, gums, pectins and/or starches) to yogurt, it is definitely to the detriment of the yogurts they are added to. I suppose it might just be my opinion that yogurt is meant to be thick, but the word is actually derived from the Turkish word yogen, which means thick, so I suppose that’s your call.

Yogurt is well-established for being good for your health and aiding in digestion. While all yogurts contain healthful bacteria as their presence is a legal requirement to stipulate yogurt in packaging and advertising, in my opinion, you’d be far better served paying for a quality yogurt product instead of what typically takes up the majority of space on the supermarket shelves — overly sweetened and void of most all the characteristics that make true yogurts so wonderful. They might be slightly more caloric, but they have the bonus of actually being immensely satisfying. Let us abolish the term “Greek-style” and simply adopt yogurt for what it should be: a creamy and luxorious indulgence worthy of the breakfast table.

It’s subterranean charms are not found within its decorum — a rather modest and altogether unremarkable facade — but in its rich history of relished late-night meals and student lunches; the friendly service offered by Mr. Boustan & Co. knowingly remembering you and your order, if not your name, when you return, and perhaps helping you remember other visits due to prior intoxications.  Pictures depicting regular diners to Grey Cup winners to Pierre Trudeau illustrate an institution favored by all walks of life.

Boustan’s offers a little more than the average Lebanese fast food usually puts forth, taking the extra step to grill your pita and stuffing it with crunchier components for a salad that can stand up to the heat.  Their shawarma, doused with garlic sauce, hummus and/or hot sauce, is a delicious and completely sodium-laden sandwich that likely won’t prevent your hangover, but will leave your stomach feeling at least momentarily contented.  An impressive selection of soft drinks will help you rehydrate and wash down your meal.

Your standard fare of tabouleh, babaghanouj, falafel and dolmades are available, but not particularly as noteworthy as their sandwiches.  Unfortunately, a glaring deficit of quality is found in their garlic potato accompaniment, a greasy reheated mess of deep fried and limp chunks of starch that I’m convinced are only appropriate to make whatever fortunate enough to be on the same plate shine in comparison.

Although they offer delivery, there’s rarely a slow moment within Boustan’s doors, and the phone is often left ringing while present customers are being attended to.  In my opinion, it would be best to head down and check it out in person if your hunger deems it applicable.

1. They are boiled in honey water, which makes them mildly sweetened.
2. They are made by hand, which gives them an irregular shape.
3. They are baked in a wood-fire brick oven, which gives them an irregular, flame-kissed surface.

Without even biting into the St. Urbain bakery bagel you can clearly see that none of these things are represented. The ingredients do not mention honey, the bagels are identical, as if squeezed out of a tube, and are baked in a uniformly way. You fail all around, St. Urbain bagel! Looking at the website for The Bagel House, at least this looks reassuringly like a Montreal-style bagel, including the cooking process.

So, judging by two dramatic variations in representation of Montreal-style bagels just one province over, you can safely assume if Montreal-style bagels are being represented outside of Canada, there’s a very high probability that they’re nothing like the Montreal-style bagels in Montreal. However, food need not be authentic to be delicious (though authentic recipes often are, or they would not have stood the test of time), and the origins of many dishes may be questionable or unknown, so to what extent does authenticity even matter?

We increasingly demand our food to hold some sort of value above a digestible commodity. Authentic can be a mark of integrity, fostering trust through reliability of taste, tradition, culture, nostalgia and lore; or just the implication of these things as a marketing term, to capitalize on our desire for something genuine, as it holds no legal definition in food. Obviously, the sale of inauthentic things as authentic makes it difficult to distinguish appropriately labeled products, and this is not something that would be acceptable in any other industry, so why with our food?

The original recipe for a dish may no longer be suited to our collective palate or culture, but authenticity is not necessarily static, adhering to a rigid tradition. Food clearly changes with the times. Indeed, if every cook were comfortable emulating what the previous generation had established, there would be no innovation — no “new classics” — and many of the old ones we cherish today. I believe a dish can still remain authentic through an agreeable evolution of improvement and modernization.

Organizations such as the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana attempt to preserve the integrity and origins of foods that have been made popular the world over. Although there is nothing legally defining what is and is not a pizza, you can be certain that a restaurant proudly displaying certification from the AVPN will be making a traditional Neapolitan style pizza to pretty exacting standards.

Perhaps one day “authentic” will hold a legal value like “organic” and “heirloom” in the marketplace, but until then, passionate ambassadors need to step up and create more organizations like the AVPN that can give some veracity to a restaurant or product’s claims, to raise awareness of the deceptions that devalue the meaning of authenticity, and scorn the people that profit from these claims at the detriment of honest purveyors.

A palate cleanser is generally a food or drink that would be described as “refreshing”, and that’s its purpose, to literally “refresh” your mouth. Bright (acidic) and neutral flavors with no aftertaste of their own are best suited for this task. For this reason, flavors that you’d commonly find in chewing gum (something that is specifically engineered to cleanse the taste of the mouth) are things that work well as a palate cleanser; mint, apple and citrus, as examples.

Fatty and salty foods tend to coat the mouth and dull the sense of taste, and quite often the foods we eat in restaurants are both salty and fatty, so we serve our food with a glass of water or green tea to sip between bites, a lime sorbet or slices of pickled ginger between courses, or finish our meal with a sprig of parsley. While these things can do an excellent job of cutting through the fat in the mouth and refreshing the palate, even the best palate cleanser won’t actually remove trace food from your mouth. Therefore, while a sip of water between tastings can help renew the senses, only a tongue scraper can do an adequate job of actually removing food from the tongue.

Though I almost invariably get strange looks when recommending such a thing, and though taking a bathroom break to scouer your tongue of debris between courses would be an awkward practice in a restaurant, nothing refreshes the palate as well as physically cleaning your tongue. Some people might think, “Well, what does oral hygiene really have to do with food?” but the answer is, of course, almost everything – unless you’re not putting that food in your mouth.

Tongue scrapers quite literally clean the taste buds and stimulate digestion, making them both an effective palate cleanser and digestif. If you’ve never used a tongue scraper before, you might be surprised at just how much debris lingers on your tongue and how much it affects your perception of flavors. I find it most noticeable when drinking beer. At the risk of sounding completely neurotic, I will often use a tongue scraper between beers, because it makes an enormous difference in how subsequent beverages will taste.

Not only are tongue scrapers an important part of oral health, but they’re potentially valuable assets for the enjoyment of food and drink. While I can’t foresee such a thing becoming all that common in dining settings, and I’m sure this post will mark my lunacy to many, try it, and you will see the difference. I promise.

While Schwartz’s may be more synonymous with Montreal smoked meat in guide books the world over, Dunn’s has more of a presence in Canada, even with locations in Toronto and Ottawa now. Dunn’s is clearly an institution, slicing up briskets since 1927, but the diner experience seems more sterilized than the rest of Montreal’s counterparts. It somehow caters to a different type of diner, one who wants something rustic and authentic without willing to sacrifice consistency and uniformity in the process.

As you can see in this video, their smoked meat is expertly sliced to ridiculous thinness and piled high on mustard smeared rye. You can also see that even their “medium” sandwiches are quite lean and that there is a significant lacking of the crunchy smoked peppercorns and coriander seeds that give a smoked meat sandwich so much character, so the meat has a more brined flavor than a spiced and smoked one.

The smoked meat or sandwich platter will run you $12.25 with the standard sours (coleslaw and pickle) and fries. The sours are fine, the fries have never been particularly fresh in my experience, dry and counter chilled to room temperature blandness. The club roll ($10.75), the hallmark of The Main deli’s decadence in my opinion, misses the charbroiled flavor and sliced tongue, but the onion roll that they serve it on is clearly a better meat delivery system. It’s an overall “cleaner” sandwich, void of the offal cuts, grease and ash, which no doubt has a better mass appeal.

Dunn’s has a better family dining feel to it, and you’re not going to fight through the lines to get in the doors. It’s hard to be even remotely objective in reviewing such a place, as though there is nothing particularly horrible with any of the locations I’ve visited, I also feel that it gives a diminished perception of what Montreal smoked meat can be to any of their diners, and I can’t help but feel that tourists lingering along St. Catherine’s find themselves wandering in their doors and thinking, “This is what these crazy Quebecois rave about? What’s the big deal?”

A chalkboard sandwich sign enticed me in today with an offering of entree and main for $14 and up, so I popped in to the new location for a late lunch and was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps surprised is a poor choice of word, as if I expected something less and was otherwise amazed, for I’d heard about, and therefore expected, excellence and was not disappointed.

Since I’d arrived at the tail end of the lunch hour, the menu offerings were limited, but I was fortunate enough to be able to order the minestrone and bavette de boeuf. I can think of only one restaurant I’ve eaten at where you can say you were fortunate to order the minestrone. Unlike the standard fare of a tomato-infused broth, mushy canellini beans and overcooked pasta, this minestrone deserves praise. A savory vegetable broth and its tender mirepoix is dotted with a few drops of oil that might have been rendered from a tomato confit. Small navy beans and thin slices of baby courgettes give the soup body. What really sets this apart are the succulent mussels and the infusion of arugula pistou that sits atop a few canapes like a rouille in a bouillabaisse. It is a somewhat uncommon flavor pairing that deserves as much hallmark as tomato and basil, the slightly bitter and lemon zing a perfect compliment to the briny musk of the sea.

As my entree is cleared I sip an espresso and peer into the kitchen at the cooks preparing my order while I wait. I had never stepped foot inside La Bouchonne, the former inhabitant of this location whose name is still stamped on my receipt, but I don’t believe much has changed between owners. The simple concept plan of warm woods, bar and kitchen doesn’t leave much open for redesign, though there is little reason to do so as it’s a comfortable aesthetic. The space being as small as it is though, I can imagine a dinner service being quite hectic and loud, tables nearly adjacent and with little room for maneuverability.

If I were not previously a fan of flank steak, I would have been after this meal. A simple presentation of beef upon mash upon reduced demi-glace is topped with shoestring potatoes and chives. It’s a simple bistro dish, but it is done well, and I was left wiping up the remaining bits of the slightly sweet and sticky reduction of beef essence with the crusty bread supplied for what may as well be the purpose of table bread’s existence.

My meal, including espresso and taxes, came to just over the perfectly reasonable bargain of $20. I would not hesitate to go back and try their tasting menu for dinner, which I hear is extraordinary.

Still, I place an order and take a seat. A waft of a stamped roach fills the air, and I don’t mean the insect. The plastic place mats on the tables look as though they hold the impressions of diners previous to me, grooves from round plates and random gouges giving them individual character. Centerpieces of what look like hockey pucks wrapped in reflective metallic paper scrunched to resemble a vase and topped with a tinsel sparkler obstruct a portion of each table.

The room is not large, seating several families if pressed to accommodate, but still manages to squeeze in additional merchandise. One wall is lined with a Trinidad inspired grocery selection, a seemingly random collection of books and a cooler full of fruit flavored beverages, and another with memorabilia of Trinidad.

The menu of Trinidad does not seem altogether different to me than the neighborhood Jamaican joints except for the omissions. Here you will not find your traditional patties, jerk and salt cod, and they don’t seem as keen on the ginger. The showcase at Jean’s is primarily on the roti and curries and the bulk of dishes are fortified with the Caribbean starches; rice and peas, plantain, potato, cassava and so on.

My plate arrives with a mass of horribly out of place iceberg and lettuce salad sitting on top of a generous portion of rice and peas (in this case, black beans), three pieces of fried plantain, potatoes, my beef roti with an additional side of yellow curry and a portion of hot sauce slightly larger than a thimble.

Although everything could use a hit of salt for my liking, there is none on the table and I don’t bother asking as my cook/waitress is busy with a customer. The roti, which I had assumed would be the star of the show, easily takes second billing to the plate of starches in front of me. A rather uninspired runny yellow curry glistening with pools of oil doesn’t seem to be doing anything for the tender but otherwise bland chunks of meat.

The creamy chunks of potatoes, also floating in the same curry as the beef, are helped immeasurably as I pour my container of hot sauce onto them and stir. When I ask for an additional portion of this we end up talking about hot sauces for the remainder of my visit. No one, I am told, has apparently ever asked for an additional portion of hot sauce. This makes my cook proud as she made it herself, a decent blend of vinegar and Scotch bonnet peppers, though she confesses she doesn’t care for the heat of chilies herself.

The plantains are suitably crisp and slightly yielding, leaving no unpleasant indicators of that they’d been fried. The rice and peas, which make up a solid half of my plate, gets another dollop of the house made pepper sauce and, in my opinion, is the star of the plate with its simple flavors that don’t leave you expecting or yearning for more.

I must admit, although Jean’s didn’t break the bank, $12 for what was almost entirely composed of simple starches was a bit of a put off. I have to give Jean’s credit though, for what they serve there really is nothing but straight up home cooking in a very friendly environment, not unlike dining in a new friend’s home. If you’re happy to visit a restaurant and season your food according to taste once it hits your table, your belly will leave comfortably satisfied.

When I walk in the door to Copoli during lunch hour, there are several customers, and just one guy behind the cash register talking on a telephone, who does not acknowledge me, and presumably hasn’t acknowledged the person standing in front of me that has been waiting to order for who knows how long either. I’m looking around the place for a sign, a chalkboard, anything to tell me what’s available, and can’t even find a menu. Though, who am I kidding? I’m really only here to test the claim of having Montreal’s best burger, so a menu seems unnecessary. Still, with nothing else to do, I find a stack of take out menus by the cash register and grab one, browsing the otherwise usual fare of wings, submarines, and pizzas that a neighborhood take out might have.

Waiting during lunch hour for what I assumed would be more or less fast food is a little off-putting, but it’s also the kind of nonchalant lunch environment that could be potential gold. Sure, it’s not the greatest business strategy, but it’s also a sort of confidence, as if to say, “We’re just assuming you’re here because we have the best burger in town – so you can wait.” So I do.

A second guy pops out from the back room, makes a quick pace of the open chrome kitchen, and makes his way back to take our orders. I get the burger, obviously, and take a seat by the window. All the seats are by the window. The sizzle of meat hitting the grill and the bubble of a basket of fries dropped in hot oil is a welcome change in soundtrack to the cordless phone conversation and my stomach starts to gurgle in anticipation.

Copoli is renowned not only for having the “best” burger, but the biggest: behemoth eight inch hamburgers rivaled by no other restaurant in the city. This cannot be disputed, as whole loaves of dense, fresh focaccia-like bread are pulled out of plastic bags and sliced up on the counter. Once it’s divvied up, you’re looking at four triangular wedges, each the average size of a fast food hamburger. The “actual size!” advertising certainly doesn’t lie: this will not be a puny burger, but a force to be reckoned with.

Or should I say, it is not a puny bun? In order to cover the area, the meat has been pressed quite thinly, and with a thick layer of vegetable toppings, the hallmark ingredient of the burger doesn’t even seem noteworthy in each bite. Although marketed as Italian cuisine and having a few hallmark Italian items, the Copoli burger tastes more like a chunk of kebab or shawarma. I actually really enjoy the dense and chewy texture of the bun, a perfect design to hold up in any ideal juicy burger scenario where a weaker vessel might’ve fallen apart entirely, but something so durable is certainly not needed in this situation. After a single wedge of four, I have to ask for additional condiments as everything is starting to seem rather dry.

Aside from the meat itself being an unmemorable disk, with an additional couple squeezes of sauce and some Tobasco, The Copoli burger is not a bad sandwich. It’s also certainly filling, and not a bad value for eight bucks. I’m having a hard time even classifying it as a burger though, let alone Montreal’s best. Although the bread is a nice foundation, no one should boast about a burger’s greatness based alone on the bread it’s served on, and the Copoli burger itself quickly takes a back seat to that and a salad of tomatoes, lettuce, onions and pickles.

For what could’ve potentially aided in making the whole thing a more memorable meal, the uniformly bland fries feel like an afterthought accompaniment picked out of a frozen foods catalog. Just a few of those flavorless potato sticks started to leave a powdered starchy tang in my mouth and were otherwise left untouched on my plate. The burger might make a better sandwich than a testament to the wonders of ground beef, but those fries are basically an insult to the potato.

I was expecting something bright and white with paintings on the walls, but when I walked in the door I was greeted with wood paneling and chair covers. The whole restaurant is no larger than my living room and I don’t think it’s unfair to say it’s reminiscent of a dive bar. The cook is clearly visible in an area that looks like it once housed a single bartender and rows of liquor and glasses, a bar separating people entering from accidentally walking into the kitchen. It is lunch, and several tables fill the room, but only several of those tables are filled.

I sit and observe for a moment while someone pays his bill. Those currently with food in front of them seem more than adequately fed and appreciative of their meals. Compliments are abound as the man pays his check and leaves. I’m given a menu and steaming cup of tea, anticipating that I’m in for a treat.

After browsing the whole menu, the lunch special seems like too much of a bargain to pass up. For $11.99, you get a choice of meat (bulgogi beef, chicken, pork cutlets and some sort of braised beef dish). I chose the bulgogi beef, the waiter walks ten paces back to the kitchen and soon the tiny Korean woman is throwing a skillet on the stove and I begin to hear sizzling as new aromas fill the air.

No sooner than I can finish my cup of tea, I’m given a pair of scissors and chopsticks, and a platter of dishes is brought out to me, arranged carefully and strategically on the table. My waiter returns to the kitchen again, fetching a large skillet filled to capacity with several more dishes, including the bulgogi beef I selected. It is clear that for $12 here you get great quantity, but is the quality up to snuff?

Of the cold dishes first brought out, my favorite was a sort of cucumber salad with a slightly sweet, slightly tangy blend of rice wine vinegar and thinly sliced cukes. The bean sprout salad was okay, but with so many other things to choose from, was quickly pushed aside, and what I think was pickled daikon, and a rather bland kimchi didn’t really deliver. The fifth accompaniment, a miso soup, was average.

Between the bulgogi and the kimchi, it became obvious I should’ve asked for the dishes to be “Korean spicy” if possible. There were no lettuce leaves or spicy fermented chili paste to eat the bulgogi with, so while the portion was generous, the meat tender and the seasoning adequate, the fermented chili paste and lettuce leaf rolls I was craving were missing. In hindsight though, this is a minor complaint, because when I return, I will hopefully be able to rectify this instead of getting the diluted Anglo-Caucasian bland.

Also on the skillet was a pleasant savory noodle dish that I ate entirely too much of, all things considered, a wedge of seafood pancake with a crispy, slightly oily exterior that I devoured entirely, about a cup of sticky rice and a lettuce salad with some sort of shallot vinaigrette. Yes, all of this food, for $12, delivered by a small and friendly staff in a pleasant enough environment. I just have to remember for next time not to hold back on the heat.